A safe place to talk openly about mental health & illness
I got thinking about this after watching an interview with Steven Pinker, one of my academic crushes, and then another interview with Jordan Peterson. Both referred to biological differences between men and women, although in different ways, and I wanted to do a post exploring my own take on sex and gender differences, and the… Continue reading Separating Out Sex/Gender, Biology and Social Construct
It seems like everyone’s talking about gaslighting these days. But if everyone and their dog seems to be gaslighting (or being gaslit by) everyone else and their cat (or if cat and dog are both accusing the other of gaslighting them), is it really a meaningful descriptor of emotional abuse? Or does the meaning just… Continue reading Is the Term Gaslighting Overused?
Last week I reviewed White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. There were some important concepts that she alluded to but didn’t clearly explain, so I decided to do a post, from a social constructionist viewpoint, about how stereotypes and prejudice develop, and why the difference between implicit and explicit beliefs is important. Our societies create categories… Continue reading Racism, Prejudice, and Implicit/Explicit Beliefs
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, whose background is education and who is white herself, looks at racism and why she believes white people don't want to talk about it. I went into the book knowing that it was popular, but having my doubts about the effectiveness of the title at accomplishing the intended effect. White… Continue reading Book Review: White Fragility
Political correctness drives some people crazy, while others think that being careful about language is necessary to keep from causing offence. There are all kinds of people out there being intentionally offensive (just look at Twitter), but to what extent should we as a society go hunting for it when it's not intended? I don't… Continue reading Is Political Correctness Helpful or Ineffective?
I recently saw a post by The Opinionated Woman titled The World Is Built for Extroverts. My comment was that the COVID world is build for introverts, and I thought I'd elaborate on that a bit. To start off, let's consider what introverts and extroverts are. Introversion and extroversion lie on a spectrum, with most… Continue reading The COVID World Is Built for Introverts
Spite: The Upside of Your Dark Side by Simon McCarthy-Jones tells us why spite can actually be a good thing, even though it probably doesn't seem like it could be. An act is considered spiteful if it involves harming another person, but in doing so, also harming (or potentially harming) oneself. Spite causes us to… Continue reading Book Review: Spite: The Upside of Your Dark Side
I find religion to be quite fascinating, despite the fact that I don't personally believe the fundamentals of any of them. This post will be a bit of a meander through thoughts kicking around in my head related to religion. I would say that I fall somewhere in the vicinity of weak agnostic/soft atheist. By… Continue reading Some Thoughts on My Version of Soft Atheism
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is cancel culture. Cancel culture is an odd phenomenon spawned by the social media era. Some argue that it poses a threat to freedom of speech. I didn't know enough to write an opinion post on it, so… Continue reading What Is… Cancel Culture
I saw an article the other day on CBC News about the government of Arkansas putting the kibosh on gender-affirming treatment for anyone under the age of 18. This is a major problem for transgender people and justice in general, so let's talk about why. After Arkansas' governor vetoed a a bill that would make… Continue reading It’s a Bad Time to Be Transgender in Arkansas